"Improve the living conditions of the Palestinian refugees. Allow them to settle down. Give them citizenship so that they can live as human beings." — Dr. Ahmad Abu Matar, an Oslo-based Palestinian academic, blasting Arab the world for its continued mistreatment of Palestinians.

The Arabs do not care about the Palestinians and want them to remain Israel's problem. Countries such as Lebanon and Syria would rather see Palestinians living as "animals in the jungle" than grant them basic rights such as employment, education and citizenship.

It is no surprise that refugees fleeing Syria have no ambitions to settle in any Arab country. They know that their fate in the Arab world will be no better than that of Palestinians living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and other Arab countries.

A recent decision by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to cut back its services has left Jordan and other Arab countries extremely worried about the possibility that they may be forced to grant citizenship rights to millions of Palestinians.

During the last few weeks, many Jordanians have expressed deep concern that the UNRWA measures may be part of a "conspiracy" to force the kingdom to resettle Palestinian refugees.

According to UNRWA figures, more than two million registered Palestinian refugees live in Jordan. Most of the refugees, but not all, have full (Jordanian) citizenship, the figures show. The refugees live in 10 UNRWA-recognized camps in Jordan.

The "Cyber City" refugee camp in Jordan, where a number of Palestinians are being housed. (Image source: ICRC)

Jordan is the only Arab country that has granted citizenship to Palestinians. Still, many Jordanians see their presence in the kingdom as temporary.

Although there is no official census data for how many inhabitants are Palestinian, they are estimated to constitute half of Jordan's population, which is estimated at seven million. Some claim that the Palestinians actually make up two-thirds of the kingdom's population.

Over the past few decades, the Jordanians' biggest nightmare has been the talk about resettling the Palestinians in the kingdom by turning them into permanent citizens. The talk about turning Jordan into a Palestinian state has also created panic and anger among Jordanians.

Jordan's "demographic problem" resurfaced last week when a senior Jordanian politician warned against plans to resettle Palestinian refugees in the kingdom.

Taher al-Masri, a former Jordanian prime minister who is closely associated with the ruling Hashemite monarchy, sounded the alarm in an interview with a Turkish news agency.

Commenting on UNRWA's severe financial crisis, which has resulted in cutting back services to Palestinian refugees living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, al-Masri said: "I believe this is part of a plan to turn the issue of the Palestinian refugees into an internal problem of Jordan. UNRWA is paving the way for liquidating the Palestinian cause."

Al-Masri, whose views often reflect those of the monarchy, expressed fear that the UNRWA cutbacks would prompt the world to consider the idea of turning the Palestinians in Jordan into permanent citizens, especially as most of them already carry Jordanian passports.

Al-Masri and other Jordanian officials maintain that Jordan is entitled to protect its "national identity" by refusing to absorb non-Jordanians.

Earlier this week, Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour raised many eyebrows when he announced that there were more than two million Palestinians living in Jordan who are not permanent citizens. Ensour was apparently referring to those Palestinians who carry temporary Jordanian passports.

Jordanian and Palestinian political analysts described Ensour's comments about the Palestinians in Jordan as "fuzzy" and "controversial." They noted that Ensour mentioned the Palestinians together with Iraqi and Syrian refugees who have found shelter in the kingdom in recent years, and that therefore the Jordanians consider the Palestinians' presence in their country only temporary.

"The remarks of the prime minister are ambiguous, controversial and very worrying," commented Bassam al-Badareen, a widely respected journalist in Amman. "He referred to the Palestinians as being part of the foreigners and Iraqi refugees in Jordan."

Ensour's remarks, like those of al-Masri, are further proof that Jordan and the rest of the Arab world are not interested in helping solve the problem of the Palestinian refugees. Jordan, Lebanon and Syria -- the three Arab countries where most of the refugees are living -- are strongly opposed to any solution that would see Palestinians resettled within their borders.

That is why these countries and most of the Arab world continue to discriminate against the Palestinians and subject them to Apartheid laws and regulations. Although Jordan has granted citizenship to many Palestinians, it nevertheless continues to treat them as second-class citizens.

In the past few years, the Jordanian authorities have been revoking the citizenship of Palestinians in a move that has been denounced as "unjust" and "unconstitutional."

The Arab countries have consistently justified their discriminatory policies against the Palestinians by arguing that this is the only way to ensure that the refugees will one day return to their former homes inside Israel. According to this logic, the Arab countries do not want to give the Palestinians citizenship or even basic rights, to avoid a situation where Israel and the international community would use this as an excuse to deny them the "right of return."

But some Palestinians reject this argument and accuse the Arab countries of turning their backs on their Palestinian brothers.

Dr. Ahmad Abu Matar, a Palestinian academic based in Oslo, blasted the Arab world for its continued mistreatment of Palestinians.

"All the Arab countries are opposed to resettlement and naturalization of Palestinians not because they care about the Palestinian cause, but due to internal and regional considerations," Abu Matar wrote. "We need to have the courage to say that improving the living conditions of Palestinian refugees in the Arab countries, including granting them citizenship, does not scrap the right of return."

Noting that Palestinians have long been deprived of their civil rights in the Arab world, particularly in Lebanon, where they are banned from working in many professions and live in camps that do not even suit "animals in the jungle," Abu Matar pointed out that the U.S .and Europe have opened their borders to Palestinians and even given them citizenship.

Addressing the Arab countries, the academic wrote: "Improve the living conditions of the Palestinian refugees. Allow them to settle down. Give them citizenship so that they can live as human beings."

But Abu Matar's appeal is likely to fall on deaf ears in the Arab world. The Arabs do not care about the Palestinians and want them to remain Israel's problem. Countries such as Lebanon and Syria would rather see Palestinians living as "animals in the jungle" than grant them basic rights such as employment, education and citizenship.

It is no surprise that refugees fleeing Syria have no ambitions to settle in any Arab country. They know that their fate in the Arab world will be no better than that of the Palestinians living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and other Arab countries.

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26 Reader Comments

Ivan Gur-Arie • Oct 28, 2015 at 15:12

Prior to the end of World War One, Jordan was part of Palestine. The nation of Jordan was born when the British decided to cut it from Palestine and reward the Hashemite family with a nation called Jordan. It was in payment for assistance given the British in the war. Before the Brits did this the land of Palestine was Turkish dominated. This included what is Israel today as well as the West Bank and the present land called Jordan. In effect it was the Brits who cut the Palestinians off from their homeland which had Jordan as part of it. Rightfully the Palestinians have a right to live in Jordan without having to go through a citizenship process. The Palestinians already have a homeland in Jordan.

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CraigR • Sep 14, 2015 at 01:33

Wait a minute. Transjordan (later Jordan) was created from 78% of the land of the original British Mandate for Palestine.

Does that not mean the "Jordanians" and the so-called "Palestinians" are essentially the same people?

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Stan Lee CraigR • Sep 14, 2015 at 18:13

Well, "Trans-Jordan" was a payoff by Great Britain to the Hussein family after it was ousted from Arabia by the Saud family, ergo Saudi-Arabia. And, that's how it has remained to the present day. I didn't realize the magnanimity of Great Britain gave the Husseins a 78% stake in "Trans-Jordan." That means someone had to be compromised in that deal. (Palestine Mandate?) I guess so.

The British-controlled Palestine Mandate was supposed to be divided equally between the indigenous Jews and the Arabs, but Trans-Jordan was ruled by the Bedouin Hussein family and populated by 70+% Arabs which would have been identified as "Palestinians" as they surfaced against the Palestine Jews.

The Palestine Arabs who were included in the Trans-Jordan land allocation by Britain then lived under the rule of the Bedouin Hussein royal family, which in turn policed the kingdom with Bedouin troops armed with modern British equipment, trained and commanded by British officers to a degree that they were, at that time, considered the best Arab troops of all Arab nations in that general area. It's obvious that the Hussein Royal family assured themselves of a peaceful citizenry by keeping a most well-trained Arab Legion (all Bedouins loyal to their Bedouin king) equipped with Infantry, artillery corps, and armored corps.

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Alan • Sep 13, 2015 at 12:19

I invite readers to read "Thoughts on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" published September 12 2015 at The Examined Life and found at alansacker.blogspot.com. It has long been known that the Arab countries have never shown any interest or care in approving the life of Palestinians and are content to let them languish wherever they may be. If the lot of Palestinians is to improve, then it will require a radical change from the last 130 years in regards to its perception and rhetoric regarding Israel and its willingness to push for a two-state solution.

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mjazz • Sep 13, 2015 at 10:06

Syrians would be discriminated against because people recall the brutal Syrian occupation of Lebanon.

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Ed in North Texas • Sep 13, 2015 at 08:38

I'm old enough to have been taken as a child refugee from the War of Independence in 1948. I was not born in the former Palestine Mandate territory. But my age raises the issue of how many of these "refugees" are actual refugees who left their homes, whether in flight from the fighting or at the behest of the Arab invaders, and did not return? UN bureaucrats have a vested interest in maintaining the myth that these are refugees, as do the current host countries. I wonder how many of these "refugees" are old enough to have been born by 1948. Does refugee status continue through multiple generations? That would seem to be counterintuitive.

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jeb stuart • Sep 13, 2015 at 08:24

Lets not forget that Jews, Arab or Semitic Jews, were compelled to move to Israel after 1949. Half the Israeli population in the early 50's was composed of refugees from Islamic nations. The difference between the Arab and Israeli positions has always been Israel embraced to a much greater degree its refugees and even its Arab minorities than any Arab or other Islamic nation embraced the Palestinians and when they did it was merely to create the violence bound to erupt from years of being forced to live in refugee camps.

But the problem is even greater than that. Not only do they not have a country because they can not conceptualize a nation of their own that does not include the subjugation of Israel, they can no longer think of themselves as anything more than refugees. When Abbas sought recognition for statehood one if not his first demand was that the refugee camps remain open. How can you be a refugee in your own country?

Palestinians were roughly treated in Lebanon where they were forced to live in refugee ghettos, were not allowed even to use the Lebanese banks and eventually were a contributing cause of the collapse of the confessional system and the horrible civil conflicts resulting. They already attempted to stage coups in Jordan and that was how the PLO ended up in Lebanon in the first place. They assassinated a Jordanian king for trying to live peaceably with Israel, why should the Jordanians embrace Palestinians as their brothers? Would it be an act of humanity or suicide, ask the Kuwaitis.

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Tee Quake • Sep 12, 2015 at 23:27

The Arab Muslim countries surrounding the Palestinians could bring the Palestinians within their respective countries with scant few problems.

Conversely, forcing Israel to absorb a population of people who want to see the Israelis exterminated, is more than 9/10ths of the way to "INSANE".

Alternatively, of all the Mideastern and North African countries, with huge areas of unsettled and essentially unused excess land, could give, or sell, the so-called Palestinians, land to have a Muslim country of their own, leaving Israel alone.

The sad truth is that neither the Palestinians nor their Arab Islamic neighbors have any interest, whatsoever, in seeing the conflict with Israel peacefully resolved. If they did, this seemingly (from the Palestinian propaganda) unresolvable dilemma, would have been resolved decades ago.

The rise of anti-Semitism in the EU and in the US (I'm ashamed to admit), has done nothing to help resolve the issues; especially since Barack Obama had the reigns of power forcibly stuck in his anti-Semite hands in 2009. Obama's: trips to the Mideast, omitting Israel (a fact no Muslim missed); his gushing support for the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islam; his unwise and uncalled for support for the anti-American rebels in the so-called Arab Spring, have each served to further isolate Israel and reduce its support from nations around the world.

Of course Jordan doesn't want Palestinians, at least, not as long as the fake Palestinian homeland dilemma is the main weapon used to isolate and unfairly vilify Israel.

Make no mistake, the Jewish people are once again being singled-out for destruction, just not as blatantly as Nazi Germany sought the same result.

The horrendous "nuclear deal" with Iran is all the proof any thinking person needs to consider, before concluding Obama is Israel's enemy and radical Islam's ally. Also, unbelievably, we are approaching a potentially serious military confrontation with Russia in Syria (ie NUCLEAR), because Russia supports Assad. (AH, guess that means Obama supports what he identifies by the misnomer, "ISIL".) Folks, if the US government REALLY wanted to clip the wings of ISIS, it would have done so, a long, LONG time ago. The facts prove we have no intention of seriously stopping ISIS' illegal advance in Syria and Iraq and now we've given Iran everything it could possibly want to see ISIS succeed and the West fail. THANKS, BARRY (not!)

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Obi Tee Quake • Oct 8, 2015 at 05:03

The American people love Israel and it's people BUT the current US administration views Israel from a completely different lens! As far as Obama and his co-travelers in governance are concerned, lsrael is in the wrong, Netanyahu is a big part of the problem and Islam is not a factor in any way, shape or form. That is a classic case of standing the truth on its head.

I have heard and seen (and have on record) several Islamic leaders and scholars declare repeatedly that the Arabs' hatred for and animosity towards Israel really has little to do with territory. Rather, they assert, their religious tradition demands that they completely destroy the Jews in order to please Allah. They say even if the Jews give up ALL their land, there still wouldn't be peace between them! So what are we talking about?

The Americans need to keep a close watch on their President because from his body language, he has concluded plans to throw Israel under the bus and is only waiting for the right excuse and/or opportunity to do so. At this rate, I see another Holocaust on the horizon, one that will make Hitler's look like child's play so for those like us who see it coming, now is the time to speak up. Perhaps our words could be of help to someone.

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Stan Lee • Sep 12, 2015 at 23:17

Sooner or later, people living for nothing but efforts in insurgency lose perspective of whom they're against. Any authority will do to act out against and that's the legacy Palestinians have built for themselves. Obviously, they're considered an insurgency going somewhere to happen. Not all Palestinians have only insurgency on the mind, but enough of them do to make them unwelcome to any countries considering refuge for them.

Then, to further solidify their dire circumstances, they've been manipulated by their own leaders ever since Arafat, or even before him by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who used them as his ticket to collaborating with Hitler and Nazi Germany (WW2). Be it the Jordanian government, the Egyptian government, Arab nations that have, in the past, tried to relieve Palestinians, the confused politics of corrupted Palestinian leadership has brought Arab nations to a point that they resist importing any further Palestinian trouble.

Both Syria and Lebanon are in the throes of Iranian mischief from their own home-grown Hizballah movements. Both nations are destabilized by the presence of their own Shia Muslim militancy as clients of Iran, backed by Russia. Also, the Palestinian cause, whatever it has become, is totally misguided by its leaders who fear for their own lives if they would actually sit at a peace table, in good faith, with the Israelis. They would rather cling to their notion of complete destruction of Israel, from Jordan River to the Mediterranean.

Coincidentally, approximately 70% of Jordan's population is descended from "Palestinian" stock, but it can be disputed that there never was a nation called "Palestine." We do know that both Jews and Arabs of that region were either born in the Palestine Protectorate (in modern times) and governed by the British Foreign Ministry upon that region's acquisition from Turkey as settlement of WW1. And, before that it was part of "Greater Syria," a portion of the pre-WW1 Ottoman Empire. This contradicts any Palestinian claim that they ever were a legitimate nation at any time. The name "Palestine" was coined by the PLO (Arafat) a name resulting from the Roman Empire's conquest of Judea. To spite the Jews, who never stopped resisting the Romans, Rome dropped the name Judea and called that conquered land "Palestina."

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Obi Stan Lee • Oct 8, 2015 at 05:36

Your historical account is correct, Stan. This history is well documented and available for anyone who cares to know the truth and yet hundreds of Representatives from every nation on earth gather at the United nations general assembly once a year (not to mention countless other meetings year round) and just LIE TO THEMSELVES about this whole 'Palestinian cause'. It's all a fraud! Everyone from Ban Ki Moon down to the tea boys KNOWS this and yet speech after lying speech is made, blaming Israel for the self inflicted woes of the Arab 'Palestinians'. But a day of reckoning is coming and it won't be pretty. The truth about history as well as all the blood libel laid against Israel is obvious even to thinking Arabs but their religion stands in the way of common sense, while the West is blinded by a very bad case of political correctness and in some cases, outright stupidity. Facts and history are very stubborn things and they never go away, no matter how much revision you do.

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Jerry Ram • Sep 12, 2015 at 21:14

Jordan is already saturated, and why would Jordan risk welcoming migrants who have no documentation? This is a no brainer. One thing is for sure, Europe will never be the same, as the demographics have changed the status quo for ever. We have not seen (yet) the consequences of this tragedy!

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bljwaw Jerry Ram • Oct 2, 2015 at 16:49

Countries in Europe are tightening their immigration requirements. One requires that you speak the local language, another mandates that you have a job, a third specifies the unavailability of welfare benefits for a longer period etc. Hungary is building a 10 ft high fence with the statement that they have lived under Moslem authority and strongly object to its possible repetition.

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Dieter • Sep 12, 2015 at 19:00

The perfect combination to determine who exactly is Jordanian, since neither ever had anything to do with running the country until commanded to do so by His Britannic Majesty. Was it Gertrude Bell at the India Office who said "that guy from Mecca, just the ticket" and that ticket it was.

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E P Campbell • Sep 12, 2015 at 14:24

"It is no surprise that refugees fleeing Syria have no ambitions to settle in any Arab country. They know that their fate in the Arab world will be no better than that of Palestinians living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and other Arab countries". That makes flooding into the West okay then?

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David Ashton • Sep 12, 2015 at 12:38

If neither Israel nor Jordan wants them, must they come to Malmo, Berlin, Bradford, New York or Sydney instead?

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Vivienne Leijonhufvud • Sep 12, 2015 at 12:16

Palestinians have choices a) accept to become Arab Israeli's, already so-called Palestinians are represented in the Israeli Parliament. B) Go begging to every Islamic Arabic nation for citizenship C) go to IRAN. Above all sever relations with Hezbollah and Hamas, recognize the land of Israel and live in peace with their fellow man. If they can't do this then let them bear the consequences of stubborn behavior. They do not need a separate so-called Palestinian President, they do not need to ally with ISLAMIC Turkey. Were I a Palestinian Arab I would rather come under the democratic umbrella of ISRAEL. Accept defeat Palestinian ISLAM. The world has seen what happened in MECCA 9/11, I have seen very little sympathy throughout all news other than Al Jazeerah -- European news barely gave the event air time last night.

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Carl • Sep 12, 2015 at 09:06

The Palestinians who live in Israel are treated better there than they are in countries ruled by their Arab brothers. They are a useful tool in continuing hatred of Israel. The Palestinians cause trouble in any country they inhabit. Ask Lebanon why they threw them out years ago.

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Serge Barou • Sep 12, 2015 at 08:48

Jordanians, Palestinians -- these are words with no real meaning, though in different ways. Ethnically Jordanians can be Arabs, or Circassians (Adyghe) or whatever (even former PM's name El Masri shows his Egyptian origins) -- what makes them Jordanians is their citizenship.

Palestinians are Arabs, too, of very motley tribal backgrounds because there is no distinctive Palestinian ethnic strain, and the only element that makes them Palestinians is 'the Palestinian cause'.

No surprise that both groups are in panic because of downsized budget of the UNWRA: it means that a huge Arabic group for at least three generations used to suck the UN tit from birth to death (and make some additional income partaking in terror) can face the need to make their livelihood like anybody else.

Looks like that could be a reasonable way to achieve more calmness in the Middle East: it will leave the so-called Palestinians with much less spare time for digging tunnels and lobbing missiles if their statute of kept women changed.

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Bill Inaz • Sep 12, 2015 at 08:15

You don't want 'Palestinians'? How about 'Palestine"? Get the U.N. to put 'West Bank' land up to the Jordan back into Jordan, and Gaza back into Egypt and we call it done and move on. Oh, yeah that would 'spoil the party".

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Fofi • Sep 12, 2015 at 07:55

It is high time for the UN and UNRWA to stop the facilitation and propagation of an ongoing Palestinian refugee situation. The Palestinians need to integrate and assimilate like every other refugee before them. This ongoing victimhood is counter to their interests as a people. Hundreds of thousands of Jews fled their homelands in the Middle East leaving everything and made their homes wherever they landed not looking back but forward to a brighter future. It is high time that Arab countries be made to help their brethren rather than use them as political pawns in their desire to see Israel's annihilation and a continuance of war.

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David Blacher • Sep 12, 2015 at 07:40

In 1947, the UN created two pairs of countries based on Muslim/Non-Muslim populations. The first to come to mind is Israel and Palestine. Unquestionably, the result of this creation fills an extraordinary number of column inches of media each and every day; and, arguably, blinds us to the multitude of other important newsworthy items.

There is, however, the other pair of countries which were formed in the same year on similar ethnic/religious grounds -- Pakistan and India. Granted, the mass movement of Hindus and Muslims to the country of religious preference did create a period of chaos and horror, but at the end of the two directional migrations, both countries melded the newcomers into their civil and political mainstreams.

While these two countries, sadly, do visualize each other as enemies, they treat their own citizen/residents as homogeneous bodies politic: with equal rights and privileges pursuant to their historic cultural mores. I posit that there is a model here which might be adapted and uniquely re-crafted to address the "refugees" in the Levant.

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David Ashton David Blacher • Sep 14, 2015 at 07:08

It would help if Mr Blacher could develop his interesting solution for the Levant population movements in geographical detail.

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David Blacher David Ashton • Sep 19, 2015 at 17:06

Mr Ashton raises a good question. The point of the India/Pakistan example is that were the confrontation states in the Levant to integrate the refugees from the 1948 war into their own civil societies (as did both India and Pakistan), there would be significantly less unrest. Instead, these states have fostered a culture of victimhood, without offering any viable solution.

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Obi David Blacher • Oct 8, 2015 at 05:52

One problem David. Unlike the Indians and Pakistanis, the Palestinians are NOT interested in a two state solution. THIER religion mandates that any land once occupied by Muslims becomes Muslim land forever! They therefore cannot allow the Jewish state of Israel to retain one square foot of land in the region. That's why no Palestinian leader has the guts to sign a real peace pact with Israel! Whoever does, will be treated as a traitor to Islam! Now, how are we gonna solve that problem?

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Albert • Sep 12, 2015 at 05:50

I hear scream of insults to Europe flooded with Arabs and other Muslims fleeing Islamic terror, poverty, lack of education despite Europe mostly receiving those refugees. Arab states receiving refugees is a pipe dream. It will never happen. They speak the same language, eat the same food, have the same religion and yet they despise those who become refugees as if they had a disease. Jordan was part of Palestine given to the Hashemite family from Arabia. The Arab refugees of 1948 naturally should have resettled in their homeland now called Jordan. Why is it that shame being so inhuman as to let your "brothers" rot in refugee camps for the last 70 years doesn't make those Arab states hide their faces in public?

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, a prisoner in Saudi Arabia who was sentenced to death as a minor, faces "death by crucifixion" after a final appeal has been dismissed. He was arrested in 2012 when he was just 17, during a crackdown on anti-government protests in the Shiite province of Qatif. According to the International Business Times, Al-Nimr was accused by the authorities of participation in illegal protests and of firearms offences, despite there being no evidence to justify the latter charge.